7:17 PM,
Jul. 11, 2012

UNLV researcher David Wong holds a rock covered with quagga mussels at Lake Mead on Oct. 30, 2009. Wong and other researchers are studying to find ways to control or eliminate the quagga mussels at Lake Mead.

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Lake Tahoe and other pristine water bodies in the West are threatened by an alarming number of pleasure boats leaving Southern Nevada's Lake Mead without being adequately inspected for the possible presence of invading mussels, critics say.

Conservationists, environmental regulators, politicians and power providers from at least six western states are asking members of Congress and federal agencies to require a much stronger boat inspection program be established at the Las Vegas-area reservoir now overrun by more than 1 trillion quagga mussels.